Locked
by absedarian
Summary: In which Emma is late for family dinner (and clueless), Regina is worried (and nervous for some reason), and Henry is hungry (and snarky). And why is the dinner table set with their best china? SQ fluff. Mostly.


**Just a quick one-shot that jumped at me sideways last night. SQ fluff with a side order of Swan-Mills Family.  
**

* * *

It was a cold and stormy night in Storybrooke. Inside the mayoral mansion, two people were at a beautifully set dinner table, food as yet untouched.

"I'm hungry, Mom," Henry whined. It was lasagna night after all and his mouth had been watering for an hour. His stomach wasn't known for its patience.

"A few more minutes," his mother said distractedly. She checked her phone for the umpteenth time that evening. "Where are you?" she muttered under her breath.

Henry's phone vibrated in his jeans and he pulled it out to look who was calling. He tried to be circumspect about it but he really needn't have bothered since his mother's thoughts and attentions seemed to be a million miles away. "Sorry, Mom," he said softly. "Nick is calling." He held up the phone and pointed at the foyer to show he was going to take the call out there, and received a dismissive wave of a hand in return.

Once he was out of hearing distance, he saw that the caller had given up, so he called right back. "Where are you?" he hissed as soon as the call was answered.

"Stuck at work," his other mother said. "I have no idea when I'll be able to make it tonight ... or if at all."

Henry sighed audibly. "And why are you calling _me_?" There was a pause. "Do you even know what day it is, Ma?" Not that _he_ had any idea what was going on but he was pretty sure his mother didn't go through all that trouble for him. They didn't even have the good china out for his sixteenth birthday the month before.

"What do you mean?" Emma asked back. "It's Family Dinner Wednesday."

"I know," Henry said patiently. "But mom made your favorite food _including_ dessert, and we're sitting at the dining table with the really good china and cutlery. Ma, whatever you're missing ... it's not something minor, and you have about five minutes to figure it out and get here. I'm a growing boy, I need to eat!"

Emma was quiet for so long that Henry just knew that she was running through all the important dates in her head. Finally, she sighed. "Henry, you gotta help me out here ... I got nothing ... it's not a birthday or an anniversary ..."

"Not even some romantic shit like your 150th-week-anniversary of not killing each other and being disgustingly happy instead?"

Sometimes Emma hated that Henry was now a teenage boy, complete with the attitude, her tendency for swearing, and his mother's snark. "You sound more and more like your mom every day," Emma pointed out, although it didn't come out as quite the complaint she had meant for it to be. "Except for the language, for which she would kill you. Then me. Or the other way around."

"Well, I come by the snark honestly," Henry shot back. "Nurture over nature and all that. The swearing is just a bonus and a byproduct of years of a public high school education."

"Shut up."

"Very mature, Ma," Henry grinned. "You want me to ask her what's up, don't you?"

Invisible to him, Emma cringed. "Would you? I'm coming over right now ... but if you find out anything, call me and warn me, okay?"

Henry hung up without another word. Sometimes he wondered who the real teenager in their weird little family was. When he got back to the dining room, Regina was just beginning to clear the table. "What are you doing, Mom?" he asked, fearing for his dinner. He hadn't been kidding; he was a growing boy and at least half of that huge lasagna was his!

"I don't think there is any reason for this any more," Regina said calmly, but Henry could hear the upset undertones.

"Hey, we need to still have dinner, don't we?" he asked, trying to get to the lasagna before it disappeared from his life. That, and give Emma some time to get over here and make things right. His mother had made an apple cobbler for dessert, and he had every intention of eating at least half of that too before the night was over. "What's this about anyway?" he asked, sitting back down at the table and surreptitiously pulling the lasagna closer to his side of the table.

Regina noticed and pushed the dish even closer to him. "Eat, Henry, before you keel over from starvation," she offered with a smirk, and at that moment he knew his mother was an angel sent from the heavens above. Food! "Just leave some for me and your ... Emma."

Okay, so much for the angel status, Henry snarked inside his head, mouth too busy chewing a huge forkful of lasagna to say anything out loud. He tried not to be worried at his mom's words, even though Regina really didn't look too happy, and whenever she called his other mom by her name in his presence, he knew to duck and weave and get out of the fucking way. Tonight, however, he felt brave; it was probably the piece of lasagna he had just inhaled.

"So what's this for?" he asked casually. "It's not a birthday, that much I know ... some anniversary maybe? Some major event in your relationship? Something cataclysmic?" He tried to be flippant about it, but he realized that some actual worry had creeped through his tone when he saw Regina's eyebrow furrow.

"That was Emma on the phone and not Nick, wasn't it?" she asked with a knowing eye roll. "I should have known."

Henry swallowed down a another huge bite. "Maybe?"

"Where is she?" Regina asked quietly. "And why on earth did she call _you_?"

"She got stuck at work, but I told her to get here immediately," Henry replied truthfully. Honesty was a big thing in their house, and his insistence on it when he was younger often came back to bite him in the butt, now that he would have liked to keep some secrets of his own. "I don't know why she called me, though. Maybe you should check your phone to see if you missed any calls," he suggested.

Regina held up her phone with a smirk. "No calls, no messages, dear."

_Damn, why was Emma so stupid sometimes?_ Henry shook his head with a wince. "Maybe ..."

"Maybe what, Henry?" Regina asked with rising exasperation at both her son and his birth mother. "You can say it, you know ... Maybe she's just still a little scared of me sometimes."

"Not ... true," Emma panted from the doorway, hands on her knees as she tried to force breath into her lungs. "I ran, sorry," she explained her state between breaths. "And I'm sorry I'm late. Pongo ran off again and Mrs. Potter's cat disappeared too and there were hysterics because she either thought Pongo and Snookums had eloped, or Pongo had eaten Snookums and then run. I'm still not sure which ..."

"Breathe, Ma," Henry mumbled around a bit of lasagne. He was getting closer to his goal of eating half of it.

"Indeed," Regina agreed with a small smile. She always found it incredibly hard to stay mad at Emma when she was being like this, and it wasn't as if she had given Emma any indication that this was more than the usual family dinner. "Come sit down and drink something ... and if your son wouldn't mind sharing _our_ lasagna with us, then maybe you should eat something as well."

Emma plopped into a chair as gracelessly as ever and gulped down a glass of water. "Wait, so you're not mad at me?"

Henry really didn't want to watch his moms being all weird or - worse - making up, so he grabbed another portion of the lasagna, then took his plate and stood. "I'm just going to finish this in my room," he announced. "Far, far away from here."

Emma didn't pay him any mind, and Regina waved him off without taking her eyes off of Emma. "Why would I be mad at you, dear?"

Emma pointed at the beautifully set table, the china, the candles - _God, there were candles; whatever this was had to be big - _and the food, decimated though it was by their locust of a son. "Because I clearly missed some kind of occasion," she whispered with sincere regret. "And I'm so, so sorry about that ..."

Regina smiled at the almost petulant undertone in Emma's unnecessary apology. She wondered if she should let Emma suffer for a little while longer, but that would most probably defeat the purpose of this evening. "Emma, you didn't forget anything or miss anything," she said soothingly. "You were just late for dinner."

"A dinner you clearly went to great length to make," Emma replied. "So I know that something is going on. Are you ... is this ... are you ending this? Us?"

Regina looked aghast. "I wonder sometimes how your mind works ... _Really_, Emma, why on earth would I make your favorite dinner to break up with you? In our son's presence, no less?"

Emma grinned sheepishly, but the worried look didn't quite leave her eyes. "To make it easier on me? More ... I don't know ... palatable?"

Regina shook her head. "You're an idiot," she whispered lovingly. "Good to know, however, what I need to do in case I ever _actually_ want to break up with you ... feed you lasagna and you'll be okay ..."

"I would never be anywhere even remotely close to being okay with that, Regina." She pushed away her plate, lasagna still mostly uneaten, appetite gone. "Could you please just tell me what's going on, Regina?"

"Very well," Regina sighed. "I wanted to wait until after dinner, but if you insist." She stood and held out her hand for Emma, who took it with only a hint of hesitation. Then Regina led them through the foyer to the study, unlocking the door with an almost shy smile.

"Since when do you lock this door?"

"Since I didn't want to listen to our son's smart remarks about _this_," Regina said as she pulled Emma into the room and pointed towards the fireplace.

Emma stared at the blanket that was spread out in front of the fireplace, colored a flickering shade of orange by the roaring fire. There were throw pillows spread along the edges and to the side Emma could see two glasses and a decanter of what Emma instinctively knew was her favorite scotch. She turned to Regina. "Now I _know_ I'm missing something."

Regina turned off the light and lit a smattering of candles around the room with a flick of her wrist, leaving them in a soft, warm light. "Will you sit with me?"

Emma followed Regina to the blanket and sank down against the throw pillows, the sofa behind her back, relaxing as much as she could while still being incredibly nervous. Her eyes followed Regina as the other woman gracefully lowered herself until she was sitting with her knees tucked under her. She, too, seemed nervous all of a sudden.

Regina cleared her throat. "Earlier, you asked if I was going to end our ... relationship," she started softly, reaching out for Emma's hand, playing with her fingers. "But it's ... well, it's actually more like I ... well, it's the opposite really."

Emma stared at her, mesmerized by the way the firelight flickered across Regina's face and created a halo around her head. "The opposite?" she mused, having trouble following Regina's words as her insides clenched at the gorgeous sight before her. "What are you saying?"

Regina rolled her eyes at having to spell it out. "I don't want to end our relationship, Ms. Swan," she explained. "On the contrary, I want to strengthen it." Her hand blindly reached out to the shelf next to the fireplace. She pulled out a small, velvety-looking satchel.

Emma watched her every move with a slightly furrowed brow. "What's that?"

Regina didn't reply with words; instead she got on her knees and shuffled a little closer to Emma. Her fingers worked the little satchel open until she could let the contents drop into her hand.

Emma stared at the beautifully crafted bracelet and what looked like a tiny Philips screwdriver next to it. The bracelet was open at one side and the metal looked brushed as it gleamed dully in the light of the fire. "What ...?"

"I know you don't wear rings because you always lose them and they feel weird on your fingers," Regina spoke softly. "Which is why I'm doing this without a ring."

"Without a ..." Emma repeated, a little shocked when she finally realized where this seemed to be going. "Regina," she breathed.

"I love you, Emma," Regina continued, trying to catch Emma's eyes that were fixed on her hand. She reached out and cupped her cheek with her free hand, gently forcing Emma's eyes up. "I love you," she repeated when she had Emma's undivided attention. "And I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you." She held up the bracelet. "Will you marry-?"

"Yes," Emma breathed before Regina had even finished her question. "God, yes." She pulled Regina into a short kiss that was both fierce and loving, filled with wonder and endless potential. "I love you so damn much, Regina, and I would love to spend my life by your side." She held out her left arm. "Put it on me?"

Regina could feel a tear trickle down her cheek - there was relief, happiness, and so much love that it had to spill over somehow - but she ignored it and raised the bracelet up to Emma's eyes for closer inspection. "This bracelet locks," she explained, "and once I put this on you, it stays. Once I lock this on your wrist, you're mine."

Emma grinned at the possessive little growl in Regina's voice. "I've been yours for years, Regina," she smiled. "It's about time we made it official."

Regina gave her a brilliant smile. "Would you like to see the engraving before I ...?"

Emma plucked the bracelet from her fingers and held it up to the light of the fire.

_My Love. My Savior._

Her eyes filled with tears as she read those four simple words that meant so much to both of them. "Beautiful, just like you," she murmured as she handed the bracelet back and held out her arm again. "Make me yours."

Regina wrapped the bracelet around Emma's wrist, then used the tiny screwdriver to lock it closely around it. It was tight, but not tight enough to hurt, and Emma liked the look and feel of it immediately. Suddenly she had a thought. "Wait, do I get to put one on you as well?"

Regina smiled and leaned back to reach for the shelf again. "If you like," she said as she handed Emma a small wooden box, which Emma opened immediately to reveal her own bracelet's twin. "It doesn't have an engraving yet, though," Regina said. "I thought I should leave that up to you."

"I know exactly what it's going to say," Emma said with a smile, closing the box again. "I'll have it done tomorrow. And then I'll lock you up, too."

_My Love. My Queen._

They kissed, softly and passionately, slow and fast, gently and fiercely until they were both breathing hard, then they sat wrapped in each other's arms, staring into the fire, just enjoying this moment, making a new memory, until they heard footsteps stomping down the stairs and loud knocking at the door. The doorknob turned but the door was locked.

"Mom? Ma? If you're done with whatever drama is going on, can we have dessert now? I'm still hungry, and if you're not out here in a minute, I'm just going to start without you."

Regina and Emma smiled at each other. "Do you want some of that apple cobbler before he eats it all?" Regina whispered against Emma's lips.

"Let him have it," Emma whispered back, a roguish glint in her eyes. "I have something much better to ..."

"Do not finish that sentence," Regina warned playfully.

"Oh, don't worry, I won't," Emma grinned. "I'm much better at _showing_ than telling."

Henry waited a few moments at the door wondering what was going on behind it and why his mothers had locked themselves in the study. Then a sound drifted through the door that he really hadn't needed to hear from either one of them, and he took that as his cue to go and be happy with his apple cobbler.

And maybe call Paige.

**The End**


End file.
